There have been numerous attempts in the prior art to provide the skier with a shock absorbing ski pole or ski pole handle because the planting of the pole into hard snow transmits a substantial shock to the skier's wrists and elbows. The addition of a shock absorbing device to a ski pole greatly reduces the chance of injury to the skier's wrists and elbows.
Some shock absorbing ski poles of the prior art have a metal coil spring inside the ski pole handle to absorb the energy of a pole plant. This spring stores the energy and rebounds with a nearly equal amount of energy that must be dissipated by a damping device. The damping devices of these poles of the prior art use close fitting parts that are costly and require frequent replacement due to wear. Moreover, the metal spring in the handle of these poles must be fabricated from an alloy that will not rust in wet environments which increases the cost of these poles still further, placing them out of reach of the average skier. Other shock absorbing ski poles of the prior art use a rubber elastomer shock absorber to cushion the shock of a pole plant. The type of pole that uses an elastomeric shock absorber in compression has been largely unsuccessful in providing a useful amount of shock reduction because of the limited travel inherent in a compression type elastomeric shock absorber. The type of pole that uses an elastomer in stretch has been largely unsuccessful because elastomers in general have a non-linear rate of stretch that is ill-suited to the absorption of shock in a ski pole.